From The Daily Express
BRITAIN’S BOOK CHEATS DODGE THE CLASSICS
IT’S Sunday evening and you’re dreading double English in the morning.
Your Shakespeare essay is due and you haven’t even read the book.Never fear, because one in ten naughty Brits admit to watching the film adaptations of classic novels instead of reading the books.The new research from Blackwell exposes Londoners as the worst classroom cheats with 16 per cent admitting to watching Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet and the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice instead of the real deal. At the other end of the scale Scots were the most honest with 93 per cent preferring to study the traditional way – from the written word.
The findings support what teachers have suspected for years but in spite of some people taking the easy route to revision, the majority still favour a good read.In fact classic novels are more relevant today than you might think. 85 per cent of Brits didn’t know that teenage comedy Clueless was based on Jane Austen’s Emma.
Your Shakespeare essay is due and you haven’t even read the book.Never fear, because one in ten naughty Brits admit to watching the film adaptations of classic novels instead of reading the books.The new research from Blackwell exposes Londoners as the worst classroom cheats with 16 per cent admitting to watching Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet and the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice instead of the real deal. At the other end of the scale Scots were the most honest with 93 per cent preferring to study the traditional way – from the written word.
The findings support what teachers have suspected for years but in spite of some people taking the easy route to revision, the majority still favour a good read.In fact classic novels are more relevant today than you might think. 85 per cent of Brits didn’t know that teenage comedy Clueless was based on Jane Austen’s Emma.
Half of the population is oblivious to the fact that blockbusting romantic comedy Ten Things I Hate About you was inspired by Shakespeare’s classic The Taming of The Shrew.A pitiful 17 per cent knew that Pretty Woman was based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and My Fair Lady and only 22 per cent of us knew that O’ Brother Where Art Though was based on Homer’s The Odyssey. Phill Jamieson from bookstore Blackwell said: “Classic books are timeless. “You will find contemporary themes such as love, sex, murder, mystery and high octane drama in all the great novels, which is why they still appeal to the masses to this day through films and have parallels with our daily lives.”
So does life imitate art? More than half of us believe we are descending into Dickensian Britain with binge drinking and petty crime on the rise. And a third of the population believes the WAG culture of trying to find a rich husband apes Jane Austen’s love-obsessed heroines.Almost half of us think young adults suffer from Peter Pan syndrome, living at home and refusing to grow up.
Pretty Woman or Eliza Dolittle? And 61 per cent agree that, like Oscar Wilde’s narcissistic hero Dorian Gray, vain Brits are overly concerned with the way they look.
So does life imitate art? More than half of us believe we are descending into Dickensian Britain with binge drinking and petty crime on the rise. And a third of the population believes the WAG culture of trying to find a rich husband apes Jane Austen’s love-obsessed heroines.Almost half of us think young adults suffer from Peter Pan syndrome, living at home and refusing to grow up.
Pretty Woman or Eliza Dolittle? And 61 per cent agree that, like Oscar Wilde’s narcissistic hero Dorian Gray, vain Brits are overly concerned with the way they look.
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